


eternally yours

by capriciouslouis



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 00:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9632381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capriciouslouis/pseuds/capriciouslouis
Summary: “Wait,” said Nate. “You’re saying that if you put George Lucas back in 1967, all of this just changes? Our lives just go back to the way they were, on this time ship with you guys?”“That’s right," said Sara.“You can’t put him back.”Ray is a heart surgeon, Nate is a yoga instructor, and Sara Lance turns up on their doorstep and screws everything up.





	

It was the vending machine that set the whole thing in motion.

There were approximately three good vending machines in the entire hospital complex - one on Ray’s cardiovascular ward, which, on the day he met Nate Heywood for the first time, had spontaneously died; one in the ER, which had great candy bars but the coffee it produced was to be avoided at all costs; and the third, which was located just outside of the staff room, in a corridor which patients were not supposed to frequent.

Ray had ventured out of his office on a quest for decent coffee, and was appalled that his favourite vending machine had failed him. It had been a busy morning - a successful heart transplant for a little girl who would hopefully be given a new lease of life, followed by a mountain of paperwork that would make his own life a living hell. As he made his way to the backup machine, Ray mused that by this point he’d expected to have several minions - ahem, _interns_ \- to do this sort of thing for him. Surely a successful cardiothoracic surgeon such as himself shouldn’t be expected to do his own paperwork. Or fetch his own poor quality hospital coffee. At this rate he’d be having to perform heart surgery on himself.

He’d been practically falling asleep at his desk by the time he’d made the decision to go for coffee, and he wasn’t one hundred percent certain he was awake at this point. As he drifted down the hallway like a caffeine-deprived zombie, he was lost in contemplation about what to have for dinner this evening - probably another microwave meal, against his dietitian's advice - when he collided headlong with a man wearing a billowing hospital gown and looking bewildered.

They both staggered with the impact, reeling like a couple of Bobo dolls. Ray grabbed the wall to steady himself, his ears ringing. God damn, but that guy had a solid head. It was like he’d just headbutted a marble statue. Blinking furiously to clear his watery eyes, he tried to focus.

The man he’d walked into stood with his eyes bulging out of his head like a fish being squeezed really hard. He had his arms thrown out as if to catch himself, and he stood with a look of complete panic on his face.

“Am I bleeding?”

“What?” said Ray, much aggrieved, rubbing his head.

“Am I - do you see blood, am I bleeding? I think I’m bleeding, oh my God - ”

The man started hyperventilating. Alarmed, Ray took a step back. He couldn’t see any visible signs of bleeding - he could, however, see an awful lot of redness and no small amount of panic. Trust him to run into someone who had a debilitating fear of blood.

Grabbing the man’s shoulders, he looked him in the eyes and said, “Okay, it’s okay, you’re fine. Just breathe, okay? In. Out. In and out. Again. There we go.”

At a loss for what else to do, Ray steered the stranger into the staff room and plonked him down on the least threadbare couch. He was a senior enough member of staff that nobody could tell him off for letting hyperventilating patients use staff facilities. As the man visibly tried to calm himself, Ray tried to figure out a plan of action. He was used to dealing with panicking children fairly regularly; usually he tackled the problem with a cookie and a rubber glove, which he blew up and drew a face on, declaring that it was now a chicken. Ray’s rubber glove chickens were famous in the cardiovascular department. Unfortunately, he sensed that this strategy would not work so well on a grown man. He settled for an appropriate look of concern.

“Better?”

“Much,” the man said. Suddenly self-conscious, he pulled the hospital gown further down his legs. “Sorry for freaking out. Injuries make me panic a little bit. I’m a haemophiliac.”

Suddenly the frantic yells of ‘am I bleeding?!’ made so much more sense. Ray felt a rush of sympathy. “That must be difficult. Are you managing the condition?”

With a shrug, the guy said, “As well as I can. I was housebound for a long time. My mom’s a little overprotective. I had a rebellious streak eventually, decided I had to live my life a little, but I guess all of her worrying rubbed off on me.” He suddenly rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish look. “Sorry. I’m babbling.”

He was. It was cute, actually. As a serial babbler, Ray could totally sympathise.

Ray quickly came to the decision that the babbling wasn’t the only cute thing about this guy. He had an excellent jawline, a swoop of dark hair that looked like it would be wonderfully soft to touch, and - Ray sneaked a look at the bare legs peeping out from beneath the gown - great calves. Shapely.

_Inappropriate,_ he told himself, forcing his gaze to sweep back up to the man’s face. It had been a long time since Ray had been on anything even vaguely resembling a date. His list of priorities went in a very rigid order: work, self-care, social life, and romance sulking miserably at the bottom. Since Anna died and his work became his primary infatuation, he’d barely given himself time to glance at another person in a romantic light. This was a new and strange situation for him.

A decidedly weird pause had opened up. Ray held his hand out, gave his most disarming smile and said, “Ray Palmer.”

“Nate. Heywood,” the man said.

He had a very firm handshake. Ray held on to that warm, strong hand perhaps a little longer than he should have.

“So, Mr. Heywood, what brings you down here?” he asked.

“Oh, routine checkup. Haemophiliac, you know. I’m no stranger to hospitals. If I didn’t know I’d bleed to death on the operating table, I’d be tempted to sell a kidney to pay for my medical bills.”

“Actually, I meant this particular corridor,” Ray said, gesturing to what lay just outside the door. “It’s kind of off-limits.”

Nate looked embarrassed. It was a good look on him; he ruffled his hair boyishly, suddenly avoiding Ray’s gaze, and Ray became painfully aware of his heart beating with far more enthusiasm than it had been able to muster of late.

“Okay, so you have to promise not to laugh.”

“Scout’s honour,” Ray promised, holding his hand up.

Nate shifted in his seat. “I was actually looking for someplace quiet to do my yoga.”

“...Yoga?”

“Yeah. I’m actually a yoga instructor. Well, kind of. I’m still trying to get my school off the ground. But the whole hospital environment stresses me out, and I really just needed a little break. Yoga calms me down. But I didn’t really fancy trying to do the downward dog in the middle of the ER, so I thought maybe if I could find a relatives room…maybe a supply closet or something…”

Okay, but that was possibly the most adorable thing Ray had ever heard. It also explained the shapely calves. Admittedly, as soon as he heard ‘yoga’ all he could picture was Nate contorted in an impossible position on a rug, chanting “ommmm”, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t also imagine what a great body he must have under that billowy gown. The colour that made most people sickly and pallid only served to emphasize Nate’s tan, which not at all indicative of someone who spent most of their time on house arrest. Ray was having a very difficult time not undressing the man with his eyes.

_If he does yoga, he must be really flexible,_ whispered Ray’s traitor brain.

“Well now my secret’s out,” Nate said. “Any illusions you had about me being a cool guy just went straight out the window. What about you? What were you doing wandering the corridors of your own hospital? God, it’s almost like you work here or something.” He grinned.

“Coffee,” Ray said incoherently. He quickly realised what an inadequate response that had been. “Uh, the coffee machine outside my office is broken. I really needed a refill.”

“That explains a lot. You must have been asleep when you walked into me. And there was me thinking this hideous gown had caused me to blend in with the wall or something. What a relief.” Nate looked him up and down. “Shouldn’t you have interns to bring you coffee?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking. Guess you just can’t get the staff.”

“Well since you’re here, do you think you could do me a solid and check me out?”

Ray blinked. “Uh…”

“Medically,” Nate said, giving him a mega kilowatt grin. “You know. Just to make sure there’s been no permanent damage from your zombie attack. You might want to notify everyone else in the building not to stand between you and your caffeine fix. Unless this is all a huge scheme to trick people into needing even more medical care.”

“I would never,” Ray said, and he made a show of carefully checking Nate over, feeling his chest - totally unnecessary; also totally dreamy - and abdomen, tilting his head from side to side to check for contusions, and murmuring the odd question here and there about any pain, which were all answered in the negative. It had been a while since he’d done an examination that didn’t involve some kind of heart problem, but he found it weirdly soothing to be thrown back into such a basic stage of his medical training.

“So you’re a physiotherapist?” asked Nate, as Ray’s hands wandered expertly over his body.

“Actually, I’m a cardiothoracic surgeon. A heart surgeon, in layman’s terms.”

“Hm. That explains it. You’re very good with your hands.”

“One does one’s best,” Ray said. “There are certain basic medical procedures that one kind of has to know about regardless of one’s field of expertise.”

“Well I think maybe you missed your calling. You’d have been a great masseuse.”

“I do have strong hands,” admitted Ray. “But I like to think they’re being put to good use either way.”

Eventually, when he could no longer justify groping the man any further, Ray leaned back and smiled.

“Well, as far as I can tell there’s been no permanent damage. Unless of course you’re hemorrhaging internally and you’re bleeding out from the inside without either of us knowing about it, which - ”

Suddenly, he realised exactly what he was saying to a man who had only just recovered from a small-scale meltdown at the prospect of a tiny graze, and clamped his mouth shut. Luckily, Nate just grinned at him.

“Your bedside manner is terrible. I kind of like it.”

“I’m really sorry,” Ray said, wishing he could curl up and die right there in that scratchy hospital chair. “I’ve spent the past three hours doing paperwork and I think the cartridges in my printer may have been siphoning blood from my brain to make the ink go farther. Also I really am in desperate need of coffee.”

“You know, there’s actually a really great coffee place just a few blocks from here,” said Nate. “Their lattes are to die for. Not like the foamy dishwater you get out of hospital coffee machines.” He grinned teasingly. “There’s a girl who works there, she does the greatest foam art. I swear, she’s the next Da Vinci.”

“I’ll have to check it out some time,” said Ray.

Nate’s smile froze on his face. He cleared his throat and looked away, clearly indicating the end of the conversation. Of course; Nate probably wanted some peace and quiet to do his yoga, and here was Ray, hovering, annoying the guy.

As if on some invisible cue, Ray’s pager started beeping insistently. Hurriedly silencing it, he got to his feet. Probably someone summoning him to a debrief, or to reassure the parents of the girl he’d operated on that morning. She’d probably be coming round by now.

“It was great to meet you,” Ray said. “I’ve gotta run, but feel free to use the staff room for as long as you like. If anyone asks, tell them Doctor Palmer said it was okay. And I really am sorry for barging into you like that.”

“Oh no, it’s cool,” Nate said, with another one of those weird forced smiles. “Nice to meet you, Doctor Palmer.”

Ray found himself giving a stupid little wave and decided to leave before he made even more of an idiot of himself. He backed out of the room, leaving Nate slumped in one of the squishy chairs with bowed shoulders, looking like Ray had just trodden on his puppy.

Ray was halfway back to his office when he suddenly stopped and realised how completely dense he was just being.

It had been so long since he’d been on a date that he’d lost all ability to discern when someone was hitting on him, which Nate Heywood definitely had been. What Ray had interpreted as a throwaway recommendation for a coffee shop had gone way over his head. Suddenly, he realised that Nate had been not-so-subtly hinting that Ray should go and sample that coffee with him.  

There was a strong temptation to start banging his head on a nearby wall. With difficulty, Ray quelled it. Not helpful. Instead, he turned around and sprinted back the way he had come, hoping to god that he wouldn’t be too late to salvage the situation. His pager shrieked at him in protest. Ray silenced it again. If it didn’t shut up, he’d take the batteries out. Whatever the issue was, he was sure a less senior doctor could handle it for a couple more minutes. Ray was concerned with a far more delicate matter of the heart right this second, and this one couldn’t be passed over to a colleague to deal with.

He burst into the staff room like a maniac, half expecting to find Nate either long gone, or prostrated on the floor in some ridiculous yoga position. Instead, the man was still sitting right where Ray had left him, looking understandably alarmed by the interruption.

It then occurred to Ray that he had no idea what the hell he was going to do next.

“Uh,” he said.

Nate stared at him.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Ray said calmly, like he hadn’t just sprinted full pelt down the corridor in order to barge in. “It’s just I realised that I forgot to offer you any compensation.”

“Compensation?”

“Of course,” said Ray, leaning against the doorframe as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say. “It’s very clearly stated in the hospital’s liability policy that we have to compensate you for any injury caused by one of our employees that’s unrelated to a pre-existing medical condition. I’d hate to give you an excuse to sue me.”

“Oh, really, it’s okay,” said Nate. “I mean, I wasn’t looking where I was going either… It could happen to anyone.”

“It’s all standard procedure. I have to reimburse you for the shock and trauma. Besides, you’re a haemophiliac. My clumsiness could have caused you a serious injury. You’re definitely owed a considerable amount of compensation. I’m just going to have to take a few personal details.”

“Oh,” Nate said.

He looked bewildered, and not at all enthusiastic. Ray decided he was taking the whole compensation thing a little too far. Perhaps it was time for a more direct approach.

“How about we start with your phone number?”

Comprehension dawned. It took Nate a minute to catch on, but when he did, the sunny grin on his face was well worth the massive stitch Ray had contracted during his headlong dash down the corridor.

“That sounds acceptable,” he said. “But you know, I _am_ very traumatised. You’re going to have to tell me more about this compensation.”

“I was thinking I could buy you a drink,” Ray said recklessly. “Maybe several. If you’re up for it. Here at Starling City General, we take patient care very seriously. I’d hate to think you felt undervalued.”

“A drink sounds good. Dinner sounds better. It might take a little extra something to make up for your appalling bedside manner.”

“Consider it done.” Ray’s pager started bleeping again. He briefly contemplated stepping on it. Instead, he shoved it down deeper into his pocket. “What are you doing on Tuesday?”

After a moment of consideration, Nate said, “I’m going to the bank to ask for a loan to kickstart my yoga school. Then I’m going grocery shopping. And after that, I’m going for dinner with a very handsome cardiothoracic surgeon.”

“It’s a date,” Ray said, his heart pounding. “May I take your number, Mr. Heywood?”

“You may,” said Nate, and he produced a business-card from his pocket.

Ray took a moment to examine it. Very soothing brown tones, chocolate and mocha, and a silhouette of a man doing the sun salute. Emblazoned across the top in swirling letters was ‘ _Master Yoga’, Nate Heywood,_ and a phone number.

Several things were swirling around Ray’s brain at that exact moment, and he had a number of pressing questions - such as why ‘Master Yoga’ sounded so familiar, he was sure it was ringing bells somewhere, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. But he settled for, “You carry these around with you?” Those hospital gowns did not exactly have cavernous pockets.

Nate shrugged self-consciously. “You never know when opportunity might come knocking. Also, there was an error at the print store and they gave me five hundred instead of fifty. I’m doing everything I can to get rid of them. I left seven on the reception desk in the ER; the employees down there all look really overworked. A bit of yoga could do them good.” He looked slyly at Ray. “Maybe you should give it a try some time.”

“We’ll save that for date number two,” Ray promised. He already had somewhat of an inkling that the two of them were going to get along. “Listen, I really do have to go this time. Someone may be bleeding out on my operating table. But I’ll call you.”

“You’d better. If you break my heart, I’ll be expecting a discounted rate for you to fix it up again.”

“Trust me,” Ray said, “your heart is safe with me.”

Before he could say anything else that was ridiculous, over-romanticized or incoherent, he left the staff room for the second time, this time with a far better feeling about how the conversation had gone. Smooth was not the word he would use to describe his flirting technique - he was about as smooth as sandpaper - but it hadn’t been a total disaster. In fact, he would even go so far as to say that it kind of went well.

Tucking Nate’s business-card into his pocket, Ray finally retrieved his whinging pager to find out what all the fuss was about, and allowed a smile to break onto his face.

He had a good feeling about this.

~*~

**THREE YEARS LATER…**

 

The doorbell was ringing, he couldn’t find a matching pair of socks, and he’d just tripped headlong over Nate’s yoga mat, which he’d kindly left in the middle of the living room. Ray staggered, grabbing the back of the couch for support, and glared at the mat. Two years of dating Nate and a year of happy marriage, and he still hadn’t gotten used to the man’s propensity for leaving yoga paraphernalia in the worst possible locations all over the house.

“Honey,” he called. “You left your yoga mat in the living room again.”

It was a rare day off, and it had been Ray’s intention to relax. He’d unplugged the phone, put his cell on silent and taken the batteries out of his pager. Nate had cancelled all his classes, and they had planned a long day of movies on the couch and a dinner date in the evening. Unfortunately, the rest of the world didn’t seem to have got the memo, and was trying to compensate for his unusual lack of stress by screwing his day up in every conceivable way. The alarm clock, which he was one hundred percent sure he’d switched off, had gone off at 5.57AM, ruining his lie-in. His toast had burned, due to the temperature gage on the toaster being inexplicably turned to maximum. And now Nate’s yoga mat was trying to kill him. Violently disentangling it from his ankles, Ray straightened up just in time for the doorbell to start ringing again.

“Nate,” he said louder. “Your yoga mat is strangling my feet.”

“Maybe it’s trying to tell you something. Can you get the door?”

“You get the door!”

“I’m a little tied up right now.”

Huffing irritably, Ray rolled up the mat, tucked it under his arm and went to find his husband, taking deep breaths to remind himself that he loved Nate and did not want to smother him with his own mat in the slightest. Whoever was at the door could wait. It was probably just the mailman with a sack full of bills that wouldn’t fit in their mailbox. Sometimes Ray fantasized about getting a huge growly dog who would chase away the mailman and spend the rest of his time snoozing on the rug, but he knew he and Nate would never find time to walk it.

“Look, I don’t want to be a negative Nancy, but - ”

He walked in on Nate, who was curled up in a full lotus on the kitchen floor, the very picture of serenity. Underneath him lay yet another yoga mat. Ray stood and fumed silently for a moment, until Nate opened one eye and looked up at him.

“Hey. Maybe you should join me; you look a little stressed out. I see you already have a mat.”

“Yeah, because you left it on the floor! Again!”

“Well how else am I going to remind you to do your exercises? If you don’t keep practicing, you’ll lose all that hard-earned flexibility. All that _poise_ , babe. You’ve got it in spades. You won’t have it for long if you don’t practice.” Nate closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “Doorbell’s still ringing.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

It was Nate’s opinion that yoga was the answer to at least eighty percent of life’s problems, and for several years now he’d been trying to convince Ray of the same. Not that Ray had an objection to yoga as a general rule - in fact, he had to admit that his life had improved significantly since he’d started doing yoga on the rare occasion he lost a patient, instead of going to the gym and running flat out on the treadmill until he collapsed and his own heart nearly gave out. But it would have been nice if he hadn’t had all things yoga shoved down his throat all day every day by his loving husband.

Ray loved Nate. A lot. But it wasn’t as though he went through life trying to convince Nate to get a pacemaker and do cardio six times a week. He could have done with a little give and take.

The doorbell rang again, and Ray decided that if it was some kind of charity thing, he was going to turn them away. Then he decided that was mean. Clearly it must be important if they were still trying. He rubbed his eyes.

“Hey,” said Nate. “Get down here.”

“Now really isn’t the time for a downward dog,” Ray said wearily.

“I’m not talking about the downward dog. Get down here.”

Sighing, Ray obediently went to his knees in front of the yoga mat. Nate leaned forward and surprised him with a kiss, and Ray immediately softened. That one gentle brush of Nate’s mouth against his own drained far more tension than several hours of yoga could have. When they parted, Ray was smiling in spite of himself.

“I’m sorry,” Nate said. “I’ll put it all away when I’m done. Promise. Then we’ll watch _Titanic_.”

“No, we’re saving _Titanic_ for tonight. I don’t want to spend my entire day crying and wondering why the hell she didn’t just move along on the floating door. Dinner first. But first, we have a persistent caller to deal with.”

Leaving the rolled up mat on the floor, Ray went to answer the door, doing his best to keep his expression polite as he did so.

He opened the door to a blonde woman dressed in a weird off-white ensemble, made of some kind of leathery fabric. A wild spray of wavy hair cascaded around her shoulders, and she had freckles scattered like constellations across the bridge of her nose.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh, thank God,” the woman exclaimed. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I didn’t think Gideon had the right address.”

Ray frowned. One thing was for sure; he’d never met this woman before. He’d have remembered. There was a kind of elegant fierceness to her - like Xena: Warrior Princess and Princess Diana had a baby and dressed her all in white leather, and frogmarched her up his front path.

“I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Kind of. My name is Sara Lance.”

She said this as if it was supposed to mean something to him. Ray wracked his brains. Usually they were full of complicated surgical procedures and paperwork and medical terminology and background musings about ways he could improve the functioning of the toaster if he’d taken engineering in college instead of medical science, so trivial things like people’s names tended to slip his mind. Still, something about this one seemed familiar. He thought very hard, sifting through the sea of information floating around his head - and then he brightened.

“Lance? You’re not any relation to Captain Lance, are you? Works for the CCPD?”

Sara frowned. “You know my dad?”

“Yeah, I actually performed heart surgery on him a couple of years back! Small world.” Ray shook his head. “Is that what you’re here about?” That would make sense; it wouldn’t be the first time a patient or relative of a patient had shown up on his doorstep to thank him. Usually they brought gifts - bottles of wine were a popular choice, and one he was always happy to accept - but he was more than happy with an outpouring of verbal gratitude.

“Uh, no,” she said. “Listen, is Nate with you? Have you… seen him lately?”

“Well, I sure hope so, or else I have no idea who’s doing yoga on my kitchen floor,” Ray said flippantly. “Are you a friend of his?” Again, this would explain a lot. Nate seemed to attract artsy, socially awkward types, the sort of people who drifted off mid conversation and went off into little reveries contemplating the mystery of whatever. He often brought home friends whose grasp of reality and social niceties seemed somewhat tenuous. Then again, Ray probably seemed just as alien to them, when he did laps of the house while ruminating on the ever-present dilemma of congenital heart defects.

“It’s complicated,” said Sara. “Look, this is going to seem really weird, but I promise it’ll all make sense. I need you to come with me.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

“I can’t explain right now. But I need the two of you to come with me right now.”

“Is this a joke?” Ray asked in bewilderment.

“Look, we don’t have time for this. I’ll explain all of this once we’re back on the Waverider.”

“The what now?”

“Okay, fine, have it your way. Look, I don’t know if this is just time-drift or if the changes we made to the timeline totally settled for you when we dropped you off, but listen - we’re friends, Ray. You may not know me, but I swear to you, in the real timeline, we know each other. We’re on this time ship, called the Waverider. Me, you, Nate, and our friends. And now we really need you back.”

There was a beat of silence where he waited for her to laugh, or punch him on the arm, or in some other way indicate that she was pulling his leg. Nothing came. Eventually Ray laughed for her, waiting for her to join in. He petered off uncomfortably. There was something about the way she was looking at him that made his skin prickle.

“Okay, I don’t know if this is some kind of joke, but you’re making me really uncomfortable.”

“It’s not a joke, Ray.”

“How do you know my name? How do you know Nate?” When it became clear that she wasn’t going to answer, the feeling of unease in Ray’s stomach began turning to full-blown anxiety. “I’m closing the door now. If you don’t leave, or at least have the decency to explain what you’re really doing here, then I’m calling the police. Have a nice day, Miss Lance.”

He attempted to shut the door. Sara stepped forward and put her foot in the doorway, jamming it. Ray was so shocked that he stopped trying to shut the door on her; he didn’t think anyone would actually be rude enough to do that in real life. Firmly, Sara grabbed the doorframe and forced it back open.

“This isn’t a game, Ray. It’s not a joke, or a trick. This is urgent. I need you to come with me.”

Ray had very few options left. A little desperately, he said, “Miss Lance, I think maybe you’re not very well. Is there someone I can call for you? How about your father?”

“Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Ray. If I have to kick your ass and drag you onto the ship, I’ll do it.”

Ray believed her. He had no idea what she was talking about or if she was even sane, but he believed her. Frantically, he started yelling for Nate in his head in the vain hope that they might have developed ESP within the past five minutes. If he could convince him to call the cops, maybe he could keep this woman talking until they got here and rescued him. There was very clearly something not right about her. He couldn’t decide if she was mentally ill - in which case, he had very little to fear from her, but he would have appreciated a heads up so he could try and get her some treatment - or if this was some bizarre attempt to frighten him. All he knew was that she didn’t seem confused or agitated, and seemed to be completely aware that what she was saying was making no sense. Most of the mentally ill people he’d met weren’t that self-aware. They didn’t realise their delusions were exclusive to themselves. Which suggested, worryingly, that she knew exactly what she was saying.

“Okay, look,” he said hurriedly, “I don’t have any money, we don’t keep cash in the house - I don’t want any trouble - ”

“Who’s that?”

Ray could have kicked himself. Trust Nate to show up behind him at this exact moment, and not receive the frantic telepathic messages Ray had been flinging his way. His husband peered over his shoulder at Sara.

“Oh, hey. Is everything okay out here?”

“Hi, Nate,” Sara said. “Long time no see.”

Nate frowned. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Yeah,” said Sara. “Yeah, we’ve met before.”

“Man, I’m terrible with faces. It wasn’t at a class, was it? Because sometimes I’m so in the zone, I don’t even look at who I’m tutoring - ”

“Nate, maybe you should go back inside,” said Ray.

“Why? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” said Sara. “Like I was just saying to Ray, all I need is a few minutes of your time. If the two of you just come with me, nobody has to get hurt.”

A chill went through Ray.

“Nate, go back inside and call the cops.”

“Don’t make me come in there,” Sara said sharply. “My father is very high up in the SCPD, and I assure you that if you do call the cops, all it’ll take is one word from me and the entire case gets dropped. He’ll call off any assistance that gets sent out here.”

“What do you want?” Ray demanded. Nate was gripping the back of his shirt, hard.

Sara pinched the bridge of her nose. “Jesus. It’s like pulling teeth. I’m sorry to lose my temper, but I’d forgotten you were this stubborn. All I want is for you to come with me. Just for a little talk. That’s it, okay? If I have to hurt you, then I will. Don’t make me do that. I’m not in a gentle mood today.”

An iron fist grabbed Ray by the throat and clenched. All of a sudden he was finding it very difficult to breathe. It would only take a little bit of rough treatment - a nosebleed, a punch that went awry, the smallest injury and Nate could wind up dead. He stretched his arm out in front of Nate like a shield, pushing him back.

“I’ll come with you,” he said. “I’ll do whatever you want, okay?”

“Ray, what the - ”

“It’s okay, Nate. You just stay here, and I’ll be back as soon as I can? If all Sara wants is to talk… we’ll talk.” He stepped over the threshold. “Just...please don’t hurt him, okay? He’s a haemophiliac, it’s a blood disorder. If he starts bleeding, even just a tiny bit, it might not clot and he could die. I’ll do whatever you want, but leave him out of it.”

Sara folded her arms, but her expression had softened a little. “I’m sorry, but Nate’s part of this. He has to come too.”

“What am I a part of?” demanded Nate. “What on earth is going on?”

“I’ll explain everything as soon as we get to the Waverider.”

“The Waverider? What is that, like a surfboard?”

“It’s an invisible time ship that all of us have been living on for months,” Sara said impatiently. “Look, are you guys coming, or not?”

“No,” Ray said, squaring his shoulders.

She raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“No,” Ray repeated. “No, we’re not. I don’t know what all this is about, but I don’t appreciate being threatened. Whatever it is you want to say, you can say it right here.”

In the back of his mind, he was thinking that as intimidating as she might seem, and in spite of that steely look in her eye, Sara was way shorter than him, she didn’t look very strong, and if it came to a physical fight, it was two men versus one far smaller woman. Alright, so Nate’s haemophilia was a setback; he’d want to keep Nate out of the fight if at all possible, but they were both agile, both fit, and both a lot bigger than her. What power did she have over them, really? He didn’t see any weapons. Ray’s confidence grew.

“This is your last chance, Ray,” Sara said. “And can I just say that the old you would have had more sense than to challenge me to a fight, even with the Atom suit.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I do know there’s no way I would ever give in to a bully,” Ray said, folding his arms.

“That’s true,” she agreed. “Which is probably why you’re so used to getting your ass kicked.”

Then she punched him in the face.

Ray staggered backwards, crashing into Nate and almost falling over in his shock. He grabbed his husband for support; Nate did his best to prop him up, but unfortunately his phobia of blood had transposed to a phobia of other people’s blood as well as his own. At the sight of Ray’s nose pouring blood down his chin, Nate immediately went very white and wobbly.

Stunned, Ray spat the coppery mess out of his mouth, flecks of blood and spit spraying disgustingly. “You punched me!”

“A for observation,” Sara said dryly, advancing on him. “Now hold still. This will all be over soon.”

She swung at him again, and then all Ray knew was darkness.

 

~*~

 

He came to on a very cold, hard floor, surrounded by the somewhat blurry faces of people he’d never met before in his life. 

Grimacing, Ray attempted to sit up, only to be knocked back by a wave of dizziness. His vision was black and fuzzy around the edges, he had a colossal headache building, and there was something disgusting drying on his face, which cracked and started flaking as he groaned and rubbed around his nose. Hot needles exploded through his face, making him gasp. It was like he’d tried to rub noses with a rhino. Blinking furiously, he made another attempt to sit up.

“He lives!” said a horribly familiar voice. “Someone help him up, before he gets blood all over my ship.”

“Might I suggest, Miss Lance, that perhaps you punched him a tad harder than was truly necessary?”

“Listen, he was being impossible. He wouldn’t listen to a word I was saying. I had to use a little brute force.”

“You should’ve let me come along,” said a gravelly voice. “Been dying to punch Haircut in his smug face since I met him.”

“If we had let you loose on him, Mr. Rory, I dare say he’d have something far worse than a mild concussion at this point.”

“What’s happening?” Ray demanded. He managed to roll over, and immediately caught sight of Nate, unconscious a few feet away. His heart lurched. “Nate!”

“Ray! My man!”

A young man loomed in front of him. An excitable kid, who looked like he should be in college. He was grinning at Ray like they were best friends.

“Man, we thought we lost you! How you holding up?”

“Nate,” Ray muttered. “Nate - ” And he grabbed Nate by the arm and tried shaking him gently. Nate’s head lolled loosely; he showed no sign of response.

“Relax,” Sara said. “He’s just napping.”

Furiously, Ray sat bolt upright, almost headbutting the kid by accident. Ignoring the pounding in his head and the shooting pain in his nose, he gave Sara the coldest look he was capable of.

“I told you he has a blood disorder. He could be bleeding out right now! Do you know how much damage it does to knock someone unconscious in the first place, let alone a haemophiliac? He needs a doctor.”

“Relax. The League of Assassins taught me twelve different ways to incapacitate a man and none of them were as crude as bashing him over the head until he passes out. He’s fine. He’ll wake up in a minute. Why don’t you take a seat?”

Ignoring her, Ray crawled across the floor to seize Nate’s limp hand. It was still warm, thank god. His pulse was steady; even Ray’s trembling fingers on his neck could locate it, steady and true. Breathing normal. He appeared completely unharmed, which did very little to relieve Ray’s fears. Just because he looked fine on the outside didn’t mean he wasn’t bleeding internally. Lightly, he tapped Nate on the cheek.

“Nate. Hey. Nate, come on, wake up.”

“That’s not how you wake someone up, Haircut.”

Ray looked up. A bulky, grumpy looking man was lounging in a nearby chair, open bottle of beer in one hand. His sleeves were rolled up to expose scarred forearms, the skin mottled and waxy, in thick ridges like birthday cake frosting. Automatically, Ray averted his gaze, because it was rude to stare. Then he wondered why he cared.

“Especially not him,” the man said. “Sleeps like the dead.” He raised his voice. “Gideon! We need a wake-up call.”

“Certainly, Mr. Rory,” said a smooth voice coming from God knows where, and then a horrible blast rent the silence.

It sounded like the world’s loudest air horn combined with a room full of screaming children. Everyone in the room yelled and clapped their hands over their ears, all apart from Rory, who appeared unbothered by the cacophony.

Nate jerked upright with a yell of shock, and immediately started flailing around, aiming wild punches. Ray flinched out of the way, and then the horrible screeching cut off and there was blissful silence punctuates only by Nate yelling. Grabbing his wrists, Ray tried frantically to calm him.

“Nate, hey, it’s okay, it’s me - ”

“What happened? What’s going on? You’re bleeding, oh my God - Ray - ”

“Oh please, it’s just a little nosebleed. I swear to God you never used to be such a big baby,” Sara said. “Get up off the ground, will you? It’s killing my neck to look at you down there.”

Glaring, Ray got up and pulled Nate to his feet. They were surrounded by a group of people who were all gazing at them as though they were some kind of exhibit in a museum - particularly the oldest of the bunch, a grandfatherly looking man with glasses and an eager air. For a moment, Ray thought about trying to reason with him, but the way he was staring at the two of them suggested that it would be a futile attempt. For want of anything better to do, he took a seat beside the man with the scarred arms. Nate sat down in the chair next to Ray’s and folded his arms, which didn’t really have the desired effect. He kind of looked like a sulky child, but Ray decided not to point this out.

“So you’ve abducted us,” he said.

“Abducted is a strong word,” Sara said lazily, and she went to lounge in a far larger chair set ahead of the others, which strongly resembled a dentist’s chair. “I prefer… ‘liberated’. ‘Rescued’.”

“Rescued from what?” Nate demanded. “Who are you people? What the hell is happening?”

“Okay,” she said. “Well it’s a long story, and we’re running a tight schedule, so I’m going to need the two of you to sit there, keep quiet and not interrupt me. None of those things are particular strong points of yours, so I’ll cut you a little slack, but if we can try and keep the objections to a minimum, I’d appreciate it.”

Ray clenched his jaw but said nothing. Currently, with no way out of this predicament, he didn’t see that they had any other options. Beside him, Nate flexed his fists. This might have been menacing if Ray didn’t know that he couldn’t throw a punch to save his life. Nate was a fiend in tickle wars, but not particularly adept at actual fights. When a single poorly-placed punch could literally kill him, this wasn’t surprising, really.

“Okay,” Sara said. “So. This place, where we are now, is called the Waverider. It’s a time ship. And all of us are time travellers. We travel around in this ship, going through time and fixing time aberrations - issues with the timeline. Little things, small changes, that can cause irrevocable damage to the way things are and life as we know it. With me so far?”

Sullenly, Nate and Ray nodded. Repeating that she sounded like some kind of lunatic would not be useful at this point.

“So we’re a team, and we were back in 1967 trying to rescue our captain, Rip, from the Legion of Doom.” Sara gave Nate a disgusted look. “Full credit to you for that dumb-ass name, by the way. Anyway, we were trying to save Rip, and we went up against two guys who are really bad news. Damien Darhk and Malcolm Merlyn. There was this huge fight, and in the process we accidentally scared the shit out of this film student named George Lucas. And that’s where you two come in.

“In our timeline, the original timeline, George Lucas became a filmmaker who was responsible for making a whole bunch of really influential movies. Namely Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Unfortunately, thanks to our actions in 1967, Lucas freaked out and completely quit being a film student. He ended up becoming an insurance salesman, which I assure you would horrify you if you still knew who George Lucas was.

“Anyway, to cut a long story short, the two of you are giant nerds, as you probably know - I’m sure you haven’t changed that much - and George’s movies ended up inspiring your chosen careers. Nate - you were our historian.”

“Impossible,” said Nate. “I flunked out of history. Twelfth grade.”

“In your timeline,” Sara said. “Not in ours. In ours, you watched this one Indiana Jones movie and became obsessed with being a little history buff. And Ray - you watched Star Wars and it inspired you to be an inventor.”

“Star Wars? That sounds lame,” Ray said.

“Oh, man, the old you would have punched you for saying that,” said the kid.

“You’re right, Jefferson,” said the old man, leaning forwards with evident fascination. “This really is an extreme case of time drift. Or perhaps...not time drift at all. Perhaps this is how Raymond and Nathaniel would have been if this new future truly came to pass. Astonishing.”

“Anyway,” Sara said loudly, “the future started to stick. George Lucas was on the road to becoming an insurance salesman. His movies mean a lot to loads of people, so that would have been bad enough in itself - but because he never made them, the two of you started to lose your memories. Time started to change. Ray never made the Atom suit. And he never invented the serum that turned Nate into Steel. So all of a sudden I have a heart surgeon and a haemophiliac on the team - which is probably my worst nightmare, no offence, Nate - ”

“Um, quite a lot taken,” Nate said.

“You were a liability,” said Sara. “You’re like a couple of goofy puppies on a good day, but with no powers and no memories, and on the verge of being removed from history and put back to whatever you would have been doing without the existence of George Lucas, you were just getting in the way. So Gideon and I decided the safest thing to do with the two of you was drop you off back in 2017, and go back for you after we fixed the time aberration. We bundled you into the dropship, set a course for 1967 and left the two of you to get on with your lives. Not the first time you’ve been stranded in history, Ray.” She smiled knowingly. “In the meantime, the Waverider jumped back in time to a few days before we met George Lucas, and we removed him from the timeline to keep him out of the way while we dealt with Merlyn and Darhk.”

“Wait, wait,” Ray interrupted. “That’s not how time travel works! Once you’re already a part of established events, you can’t just jump back in time again and fix things, that totally screws with the timestream.” In response to Nate’s incredulous look, he said, “I keep telling you you should watch Doctor Who.”

“Time doesn’t work like that in real life,” Sara said condescendingly. “It’s complicated. But to sum things up: we make the rules. We watch over the time stream. So we kidnapped George Lucas and we’ve been keeping him in stasis.”

“It is tragic that the two of you don’t know who he is, because you’d be geeking out so hard about this if you did,” said Jefferson.

“We lost Rip,” Sara said heavily. “The mission failed. We don’t know where he is - but we do know that it’s safe to put back George Lucas, so we came to pick you up before we take him home.”

“This,” Nate said, “is crazy. It’s so crazy, it has to be true. Things like this just don’t happen. Time travel. It’s real.” He stared at Ray. “You feel it, don’t you? This can’t be some kind of delusion. It’s actually happening.”

“You know, it’s really weird hearing you actually make sense,” said Sara. She got to her feet. “Anyway, now that we have the two of you, it’s time to go and drop off George Lucas. We’ll put him back a few days after we took him. Hopefully he’ll think he was just on bad acid. That sort of thing happened a lot in the sixties.”

“Wait,” said Nate. “You’re saying that if you put him back, all of this just changes? Our lives just go back to the way they were, on this time ship with you guys?”

“That’s right.”

“You can’t put him back.”

Sara frowned. “Come again?”

“I like my life,” said Nate. “I’ve got a pretty sweet thing going. Things are going great. I finally got my school off the ground, we just bought a house. We have enough in savings for at least two potential children to go to college. Why would I want to give all that up for some crazy life on a time ship and a degree in history?”

“In our timeline, the real timeline, you’re a hero,” said Sara.

“I’ll pass, thanks. I’m no hero.”

“No, man, you don’t get it,” objected Jefferson. “The way things are supposed to be, Ray cured your haemophilia. He gave you these awesome steel powers! Nothing can hurt you. You’re made of this really strong metal, you’re bulletproof. You’re a total badass!”

“Yeah, I’m not so big on the whole badass thing. I’m actually kind of a pacifist, so - ”

“Wait, wait,” interrupted Sara. “If you’re not a historian in this timeline, what _do_ you do?”

“I’m a yoga instructor,” said Nate. 

Rory laughed. They all turned to stare at him.

Raising his beer, he gave Nate a smirk and said, “Pussy.”

Nate swelled with annoyance. “Yoga is a very complex and disciplined - ”

Ray put a hand on Nate’s arm. This really wasn’t the time to be debating the finer points of the underappreciated art of yoga. “Listen, what I think Nate’s trying to say is that we like our lives. Why would we uproot all of that to go on some crazy journey with a group of people we don’t even know?”

“We’re your family, Ray,” Sara said quietly. “This was never supposed to be a permanent situation. We left you back in 2017 for your own safety. We were always coming back for you. This isn’t how you’re supposed to be.”

“You lost the right to decide that the moment you left us back in 2017,” Ray said. “You gave us new lives. The old us, whoever they were, is not who we are now. This isn’t your decision to make. Nate and I don’t want to get tangled up in this mess. He has his yoga business. I’m perfectly happy just being a heart surgeon.”

“A successful and well-renowned heart surgeon,” Nate corrected.

Ray gave him a sideways glance. “Baby, I don’t wanna boast.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Nate scolded. “We talked about this.”

“Okay, there’s one thing I’m really not getting about this,” said Sara. “When I found you, the two of you _lived_ together. What the hell is that all about?”

“What do you mean? Of course we live together. Why wouldn’t we?”

“Look, I know you two have been thick as thieves ever since Nate got on the Waverider, but owning a house? That’s a little excessive.”

Ray frowned at her, and was about to object when a yell from Jefferson made them all jump.

“Dude! Is that a wedding ring?”

“Of course it’s a wedding ring,” Ray said, looking down at his left hand. It was there on his ring finger, like it always was, a plain gold band that he and Nate had picked out together. Its twin glistened on Nate’s finger, and he was suddenly very aware that the entire room was staring at it. “...Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re married?” demanded Sara.

“We’ve been married for over a year,” Ray said. “Are we not married in your timeline? Did I not pop the question yet?”

“You aren’t even _dating_ in our timeline,” said Sara. She stared with sickened fascination as Ray’s left hand. “I mean, you flirt constantly, but it’s never actually _gone_ anywhere. Just a whole load of pining.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Nate said, getting to his feet. “First you tell us we’re supposed to ditch our entire lives to go back to some ridiculous adventure in a time machine, and then you tell us we’re not even married? Nope. Not happening. Ray and I love each other. We have our whole lives worked out. I’m not going to give that up just so some guy can make a bunch of terrible-sounding movies.”

Ray grabbed his hand. Nate gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand tightly. Together, they faced the rest of the team, who were all gawping.

“We’re getting off this time ship,” said Nate. “We’re going back to our lives. The rest of you can just carry on doing whatever it is you do, and I’ll go teach yoga, and Ray will keep doing heart surgery, and someone else can save the world.”

“Nate, we can’t let you do that. You’re already part of established events. If the two of you don’t become the Atom and Steel, history changes in a thousand different ways! Maybe not in the beginning, before all of this, but we’ve meddled in history way too much. That can’t be undone. You don’t have a choice in this.”

“Like hell we don’t,” Ray said angrily. “Let us off this ship.”

“Ray,” Sara said. “Listen. I know you won’t remember this. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

And for the second time that day, she punched him in the face.

Ray staggered backwards, yanking Nate with him, and the two of them fell clumsily to the floor in a heap. Wildly, Ray tried to drag Nate to his feet and run for the exit, but they were surrounded by a ring of people. Sara, and Jefferson, and Rory and the old man, and a gorgeous black woman who had held her tongue throughout the entire proceedings, and there was no way out.

“Martin, administer the sedative,” Sara ordered.

There was a sudden sharp pain in the back of Ray’s neck, and a hiss of air as something was injected into his bloodstream. He hadn’t even realised there was anyone behind him; he groped for the back of his neck, and things were going thick and fuzzy, like the feeling of your foot going to sleep, but spreading all over his body. Everything was clumsy and heavy, and Nate’s hand was slipping from his grip. He sagged to the floor, still fumbling for his neck like he could claw the sedative out of his body. Sara was leaning over him, blurring out of focus, until all he could see was a halo of soft golden hair and a soft smear of pale skin. He was scared, and he couldn’t find Nate, and his whole body felt clumsy and stupid and darkness was closing in, like he was drowning and water was closing over his head.

“I’m sorry,” said Sara.

 

~*~

 

Ray awoke with his tongue thick and heavy in his mouth, like a slab of dry bark, and the worst headache.

He tried to open his eyes and regretted it immediately. Light streamed in, assaulting him. It knocked him back and brought tears to his eyes. Groaning, he let himself lie back. Was he hungover? He didn’t remember drinking anything. The last thing he remembered was being packed off in the drop ship, his whole head blurry with mixed together memories like someone had stuck his entire head in a blender. He felt like Dumbledore might feel if someone had grabbed the pensieve, shook all his memories around until they mixed together and then tried to drown him in it. Grimacing, he forced his eyes open.

He was on the Waverider, lying flat on his back on the floor. Someone was hovering over him - someone with a mess of golden hair.

“Sara?”

“Welcome back,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I just stuck my head in a cement mixer,” said Ray, sitting up with a groan. “What happened? Did we get Rip?”

“Not quite. We almost had him, but Darhk and Merlyn got to him before we did. How much do you remember?”

Ray frowned. There were bits and pieces, but they kept slipping out of his reach every time he tried making a grab for them. It was like trying to seize a bar of soap in the bath. Huge chunks of the last few days, slipping through his fingers…

“Not much. I remember we scared the crap out of George Lucas. And Nate and I were forgetting everything… the past was changing. Oh, God. George Lucas never made Star Wars.” He made a grab for her. “Did we fix it?”

“Yeah,” Sara said softly. “I think we fixed it.”

“Phew,” said Ray, blowing upwards. His hair ruffled slightly. “Where’s Nate?”

“We got him in the med bay. Decided to keep the two of you separate for a while, until we figured out where your heads are at.” She held out a hand.

Gratefully, Ray took it. He was halfway to his feet when she let go and he went sprawling back to the ground again, banging his head in the process. What he thought had been an offer to help him up had actually been an attempt to examine his left hand. Considerate as always, Ray thought grimly. Maybe he’d just lie here for a while. His head didn’t feel too great.

“Well, the ring’s gone,” Sara said. “I think things are back to the way they should be.”

“Ring? What ring?”

“Never mind,” said Sara. She was giving him a strange smile. “Just...take it easy for a while, okay? Time does funny things to your head.”

Sound advice. Ray decided to take it. Dizzily, he sprawled out on the floor. He’d quite like to lie down in an actual bed, but the floor would do for now.

Sara had almost disappeared from his peripheral vision when she hesitated, turning back to look at him.

“Ray?”

“Yeah?”

She paused for a moment. “Look, uh. You didn’t hear this from me. But if you felt like maybe asking Nate to go for a drink the next time we touch down someplace, I have this hunch that he might say yes.”  
  
And she left Ray to lie on the ground and wonder what on earth she meant by that.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be funny and it somehow ended up kind of sad without me even realising. Whoops.
> 
> The time travel stuff in this fic doesn't completely make sense but I figured, it doesn't really make too much sense on the show either if we're being honest with ourselves...
> 
> I recently made a [Flash/LOT-Centric tumblr](http://coldflasher.tumblr.com/) so come and say hi if you want!! 
> 
> (Also if anybody has been reading my coldflash fics - the third instalment of my roommates universe is well underway, it's currently over 200k and a hot mess. I have a beginning. I have an ending. I have a decent amount of everything in the middle. I'm currently working on getting all my random scenes and snippets into some kind of order so I can start filling in the gaps and I would like to thank everyone for their patience! I'll get there eventually!)


End file.
